Marko Syrjala from Metal-Rules.com caught up with THIN LIZZY drummer Brian Downey recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

What made you decide to come back once again as Thin Lizzy and do this tour?

Downey: "To come back now and play, I was thinking about it for since that time when we did that show with Gary (Moore), Scott (Gorham), Brian Robertson and Eric Bell in Dublin in 2005. And I just felt you know if ever Sykes and that whole thing kind of disintegrates it might be a nice idea to get something for the 25th anniversary for Phil, really. That was really in the back of my mind since the Gary Moore thing. And fortunately I got a call from Scott saying that John is not involved anymore and maybe we should do what we were talking about five years ago. And I said that sounds pretty okay to me, but I mean I had also in the back of my mind to bring Brian Robertson, you know, to have Robbo, Scott, myself, Wharton and Mark Mendoza on bass. Ricky Warwick wasn't in my mind at the time but when he was suggested I said yeah he sounds great, fantastic. And so that really came from that conversation we had five years ago really backstage when Gary, obviously Gary wasn't a part of the conversation but it's when it was involved on the 20th anniversary. And it came from that particular conversation so that's really how that happened. And now when Scott said it to me I thought it was an opportune time to do it. John had gone and there was no holding Scott back to do it."

What's going to happen with Thin Lizzy after this European tour?

Downey: "Well you know Vivian has to obviously go back to Def Leppard because they're touring in the summer but there is like one other gig, maybe a couple festival dates we can do in between him playing, before he goes back on the road with Def Leppard, and also in between the tours with Def Leppard he might be able to do some more dates. Other than that I'm not 100% sure exactly what's going to happen and there's nothing planned really as such apart from just these European dates we're doing. Obviously we're doing that, and there could be some dates in America. But other than that when Vivian goes back to Def Leppard and he's committed to playing with them."

When you were putting this new line up together, John’s name was definitely out of question?

Downey: "Oh you know John apparently resigned from the band. He resigned, yeah, he wasn't sacked or anything, he just resigned so that was it, had enough. And I think they were going to play with AC/DC and in fact there was at a gig in Ireland and two weeks before that came it was supposed to happen he walked out. So they had to cancel that show and maybe other shows as well, I'm not really sure. I know they had to cancel the one in Ireland supporting AC/DC so that was the end of that."

Read the entire interview here.